Arika

Background

Arika Co. Ltd. is a Japanese video game developer. It was formed in 1995 by former Capcom employees, originally as "ARMtech K.K", later named "Arika". The name of the company is the reverse of the name of the company's founder, Akira Nishitani, who along with Akira Yasuda, created Street Fighter II. Arika's first arcade game was Street Fighter EX. It was successful and was followed up with two updates (Street Fighter EX Plus and EX Plus α for the PlayStation), and two sequels in arcades, on PlayStation and PlayStation 2. In 2018, they released a PlayStation 4 spiritual successor to both Street Fighter EX and the arcade only game Fighting Layer (published by Namco), called Fighting EX Layer. In 2019, Arika collaborated with Nintendo to create Tetris 99.

Arika is known for the Tetris: The Grand Master series, Cardcaptor Sakura series, and Endless Ocean, a scuba diving game for the Wii.

Logo (November 30, 1996-)

Visuals: On a black or white background, there is the Arika logo (the blue text "AKIRA", with the "A"'s missing their crossbars), before it fades out.

Variants:

On recent games (such as Fighting EX Layer), the logo has white and blue borders around it.
There are several animated variants which depend on each game. Here are some of them;
- On Street Fighter EX2 Plus for the PlayStation, the logo is made out of stone and breaks out of a wall. Then the background fades to black, and we see the normal logo.
- On Street Fighter EX3 and Everblue 2 for the PlayStation 2, the inside of the logo fades to the game's opening scene (which varies depending on each game). The screen slowly zooms through the logo, before the black background fades away while the game's opening continues.
- On Technictix and it's updated version, Technic Beat, the logo spins in from the left of the screen and stops. This variant is extended on Technictix, which is part of the game's opening. On that variant, the logo zooms in, before the camera pans up to continue the opening.

Technique: None for the still version, but sometimes it's animated.

Audio: None for the still version.

Audio Variants:

On Street Fighter EX3 and Everblue 2, the opening theme of the game plays.
On Technictix and Technic Beat, a male announcer says "Arika Presents...", before the game's opening theme plays.

Availability: Seen on a couple of their games, such as the Street Fighter EX series, the Tetris: The Grand Master series, Fighting Layer, Everblue and Everblue 2 for PlayStation 2, Endless Ocean and Endless Ocean 2 for the Wii, Fighting EX Layer, and others.

Legacy: A familiar fan favourite among Street Fighter EX and Fighting Layer fans. The animated variants are noted and known for their speciality, as they are much more unique than the still variant.